About the project
The project sought to describe and analyse some of the complexity surrounding matters relating to religion. The Center for Holocaust and Minority Studies’ contribution to the project took the form of studies of minority religions, with the emphasis on depictions of Islam and Judaism. Debates concerning mosques, hijab wearing, the circumcision of baby boys, ritual slaughter of animals for consumption and antisemitism were among the issues analysed. The project contributed to what has become an extensive interdisciplinary field of research: religion in the media.
Part of the project examined how Jews and Muslims themselves participate in public debates. For example, one study consisted of an analysis of two wide-ranging media debates about the hijab, one from 2005 that sprang from France's ban on the wearing of hijabs in schools, and one from 2009 about whether the hijab could be part of the Norwegian police uniform. The study paid particular attention to the hijab-wearers’ own arguments and analysed these in light of theories about secularism and public life. Another study highlights five Jewish voices in the debate about circumcision and debates about antisemitism. What arguments do they use, secular or religious? And how are their arguments linked to the issue of identity?
Publications
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Døving, Cora Alexa: Jews in the News – Representations of Judaism and the Jewish Minority in the Norwegian Contemporary Press, Journal of Media and Religion, 2016, VOL 15, Issue 1. Routledge: Tylor & Francis Group, 2016
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Døving, Cora Alexa: Position and Self-understanding of Sunni Muslim Imams in Norway in Journal of Muslims in Europe, 3 (2014), 209-233, Brill, 2014
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Døving Cora Alexa and Kraft, Siv Ellen: Religion i pressen [Religion in the Press], Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2013
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Døving, Cora Alexa: The Hijab Debate in the Norwegian Press: Secular or Religious Arguments? in Journal of Religion in Europe, vol. 5, issue 2 (2012) 1-2, Brill, 2012
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Døving, Cora Alexa: “Religionens omveier – det sekulære argument i hijabdebattene” [Religion's Detours – the Secular Argument in the Hijab Debates], in Bangstad, Lerivik, Plesner (Ed.): Sekularisme i Norge [Secularism in Norway], Oslo: Unipub Forlag, 2011